Death comes to tea in a suit, polished clean and well pressed. An evidence of the hand-washing Mom is mandated to do, even though we own a washing machine. There is a shiver that runs down my spine when I see those clothes fitted perfectly on his charcoal dark skin. He is the picture of perfection on the outside. A picture that spells everything he is not on the inside.
Death comes to tea with a scent. I’ve associated him with that scent since I was born. Woodsy with the hint of his citrus aftershave. It’s weird that this is the scent I’ve come to know.
Because it is akin to the scent of the men in the romance books I usually get from Christina and sneak behind my wardrobe under the dim glow of the dying rechargeable lamp to read. I usually wonder to myself how death would have such scent, when all the men who wore it in the romance books I read were life themselves?
Death comes to tea with a smile. Even now, ten years later, I still shudder a bit when I remember it. Hands down the creepiest smile I’d ever seen. It’s weird because it wasn’t creepy to most people who would think it as charming. His perfect white teeth glinting as his lips tilts to one side in a grin. It is the smile he has every morning as he sits down to tea.
The smile he had on his face when he cut my waist-length hair because according to him, my eleven year old self had been swishing it at Church for men to lust after. It was the same smile he’d have on his face as he rechecked his belt to ensure that the buckle with its jagged sides would be what landed on mother as he lashed her.
Death comes to tea with a chatter. He is always in the most perfect mood in the morning. In those ten minutes when he sits to tea, mother and I by each side of his, and his newspaper temporarily forgotten as he deigned to shower his family with attention.
According to him, no news is as important as family time. I wonder if he remembers this when he inflicts pain on mother and I. He’d ask me whether I patched things up with Bisi, and ask mother if she liked the wig Kate Henshaw wore in that movie, and if she’d like him to purchase it for her. The perfect Dad. The perfect husband. The perfect death.
Death comes to tea with promises. He’d have an extra wad of cash out of his briefcase to give Mother, even though he’d already given her money that morning. To make up for his guilt, perhaps. He’d have extra chop money for me too, and even a box of special Swedish chocolates he had imported.
He’d push it into my hands with that creepy smile of his and tell me that he was going through a phase. He’d tell us that we should just bear with him as he tried to get his life in order, and forgive him when he stepped out of line. I would smile and pretend that my arm where he was holding wasn’t hurting from yesterday’s lashings. Mom would attempt a smile as well. But with her split and swollen lip, her smile would resemble more of a grimace.
Death comes to tea today. The side of Mom’s face is already turning a sickly shade of purple after last night’s ministrations, and I can’t move my left arm because it’s been fractured. For the third time in the last month. Death comes in with his usual smile, his usual scent, his usual chatter. And then sits to take a sip of his tea. A customary thing he does, before Mom and I take our own tentative sips.
But today, our eyes are not on our beverage, but on death as he sips his tea. Because we know that life would already leave his eyes before he drops the tea cup. Because our own personal death will meet his today. Mom and I hold hands under the table as his eyes roll backwards and he begins to foam in the mouth. Tears already rolling down our cheeks, we exclaim. Finally, death shall torment us no more!
Jhymi🖤
My entry to the Freewrite Community's Daily Prompt.
Images designed with Meta Ai.
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
